Chiva
by Yours Hopefully
Summary: Chiva - the Yautja word for trial. Scar and Lex best the queen and take on the trials of life as a mated pair. The legend of their lives over the centuries that span beyond - and the love of mate, clan, and the hunt.
1. Survival

_All respective rights to the owners – I am not profiting from this work of fiction or own any of the characters save for the original ones created. – Yours Hopefully_

* * *

Survival

The queen _k__ainde amedha_ was smote on the ice of the tundra. A Yautja blooded was the victor of the match, and he had the luck of championing the hunt alongside an unexpected partner – an ooman female. He and his brothers had not expected the group to be poking around the trial grounds meant for their rite – but it had been a challenge none the less.

The oomans had fallen one by one until this female had grown more backbone than he thought capable out of the race of soft meats. She'd submitted his rightful weapon back to him and sworn some sort of honor oath to him, from what Scar had gathered. Then proven her iron will by giving her comrade an honorable death in the face of his defeat by the hardmeats and their young. Beyond that, she had fought off and killed her own hardmeats with the most basic of weaponry he'd fashioned for her. More than his fallen brothers could even say.

She was something to respect, he had learned. Especially in the critical moments of the fight when it could've been his lifeblood spilling out onto the ice. Sloppiness meant death, and her cunning lure of the angry queen had given him the opportunity to take his prey behind the great crested head and sever it in one gushing blow, acid raining down to bore into the ice and singe his armor.

He had crawled away with a few burns and gashes, but nothing life threatening. Scar gloried in his new marks, flexing them for the female as she sputtered and gasped and heaved on the ice. She was shocked – understandably. He was still somber and mournful of the brothers he had lost in the hunt, but he would see that their remains were brought to the home world and properly honored for their final journey. Through his victory they lived on, and songs would be sung in their honor.

Scar was just about to bring the female to her feet when the ice began to splinter underneath his padded feet – and before they could both react it fell away. A tactical part of his mind said the boring acid sinking the remains of the queen hard meat was to blame for this cave in a few hundred yards away from her growing pit. But he caught onto the ooman before she could fall without him and buried a wrist blade into the wall to catch them both.

The female weighed next to nothing. He flung her to a rocky outcropping and she caught on with freakishly easy grace that even gave Scar pause to trill and admire. He leaped after her, expecting to crouch and help her up. But instead she had scaled up the remainder of the outcropping to scoot up and stand in the pool of melted ice freezing them both from the waist up. It was a shallow depression, but Scar sighted a higher up recess of rock from the pool that would serve for good shelter until he could flag down the cruiser from orbit.

It was unexpected that this female was such a good climber. But Scar estimated that this wasn't your average ooman. He watched her shake off water from the thick length of dark hair snaking down her back, and she let out what he translated as an ooman expletive.

Her name was shouted by that one male she eliminated out of mercy. The male who did not bear any trace of mating musk from her. Presumably not her mate. He couldn't smell a trace on one on the female in his proximity, come to think of it. Monosyllabic in their language, he trilled the name off a few times in his own translation of the ooman tongue. It made the female look up.

Most elders, his father included, would tell of the soft meats and their frail appearance. But even his father would trail off in the description of some females honorable enough in the combative sense. Some ooman females had a wild streak in them that rivaled a female Yautja – a wild streak that hid deadly intent under a very deceptive guise.

Skin not pebbled with scaly, dry flesh like his race – it fascinated him. Smooth and brown like tanned leather and flawless save for the mark of the clan she bore on one crested cheekbone. Her eyes were a darker color to her exotic looks – thick with browns and hints of proud gold.

Even her mouth inspired in him such puzzlement, and now he knew why it was one of the most confusing traits his kind found on the soft meats. Fleshy, without any flexing mandibles to flare out in a threat display or croon-click to a female in heat. Lips they were called, and this ooman was in possession of a sculpted, pretty pair that pursed and moved in ways that were purely distracting to the hunter – mesmerizing.

An unblooded he was not. Not any longer. Now, he was an elite hunter with his own queen's skull to mount on the walls with the rest of his conquests. But the little ooman was owed her own honor and kills – being able and vicious in her combat against the clever hard meats. For this he respected her and desired her for. But meaning was hard to convey when he only had blunt body language and emotive trills and clicks to share with her blunt tongue.

The female jabbered in her own language, anger saturating the tone and lighting up her face. That message was conveyed very well to Scar – frustration. He was feeling it too. Frustration towards her obnoxiously exotic scent and the urge to mount her. But it seemed this female was keener on getting out of the submerged cave.

He'd been denied this for all his time alive – willing female flesh. Too lowly in honor to attract a mate during her heat, with little in the way of trophies and conquests to claim. Now he was rooted up with some female ooman reeking of a ripe breeding age and flushed with angry heat. It gave off her scent strongly, even through the manifold layers of protective clothing bulking her frame.

* * *

Lex was beyond words when the outlandishly oversized predator began to hack and slash at her soaked clothes. But even a part of her brain knew the intent behind it – survival. Something she was all too familiar with after her years of experience in the more extreme climes of this planet.

Soon she was down to her simple black underthings in the pool of freezing water – sports bra and panties. Even her thermal under-armor got snipped off with the delicate work of his wrist blade.

Scar, as she had dubbed him in her internal monologue, had hauled her off without much of a struggle on her part. She was cold – every inch of her fleshed out with goose pimples and a lack of feeling around her mouth. If she had a mirror on hand, she was sure the flesh around her mouth would be a very pasty blue at this point. The predator was examining a divot in the ice wall before flinging up a spiked device from his belt. A little thing resembling some of the earlier throwing stars hurtled around the pyramid started clipping into the ice wall to the rim. All the while a little red light lit up the device – a tracer? Scar turned on her, dipping his head at her frantic point upwards. Help was on the way, but obviously he wasn't concerned about a hasty retreat. In fact, he seemed to want to burrow in for a while.

She could have climbed out of this crag in her sleep – but she doubted he'd let her go out into the wind-chill in her state. The male seemed to have a vested interest in keeping her alive now. For what reason? Lex couldn't fathom.

The predator had her by the waist before Lex could blink, hauling her shaking form over his shoulder as he hiked them up the ice with his spiked footgear spearing the wall. It was a cozy niche, all compact and well out of the chill. He set her down and started tending to a few necessities – piecing out gear and withdrawing a few devices that flared out with a click and beep from his wrist device. Soon his massive output of body heat started to leech into her freezing form just by proximity.

He had a kit out in little time, a metal plate fanning out and starting up a small but powerful flame in a white hot glow that hurt to look at directly. He toned it down at her flinch, the burn cooling to a light flicker that still brought heat back into her body. Pieces of his armor and weapons began to come off, stacking into a militarily precise pile for easy access. This hunter definitely expected the 'if' in life, Lex surmised.

He was down to the basic stretch of netting and coverings by the time she looked back over, his form folding to lean back onto the wall as he sat. His mask leaned on the pile, the scored mark still fresh and glinting in the fire light – a mirror to the one that tingled on her cheek and graced the broad sweep of her savior's forehead.

Then came the hard part. He tried to lure her over with a docile croon. More like a rumbling purr to her ear, like an overgrown jungle cat.

Lex hunched over on the opposite end of the recess – away from him and the saving heat of the fire. It wasn't fear that cowed her. Simply the obstinate desire to get by on her own without his help. But the rebellion wilted inside of her when he seemed to grow tired of her stubbornness. In one powerful flex of his arm, his hand had snuck out and snatched her back to lay over the massive expanse of his chest.

She squirmed onto a very thick-set pair of hips still shrouded in metal wiring and a codpiece. A warning growl froze her, and she simply shot him a peeved look that clearly stated her lack of care for his threats. Then she heard it – a rumbling chuckle that trilled out of his flexing mandibles and a tensing of the muscles in the rigid expanse of his abdominals. He was laughing at her!

Nearly clocking herself out on the low ceiling of the recess, she rose up against him with an irate hiss.

"You think this is funny, don't you?" she snarled into his face. All amusement was wiped off of him at that point, and Lex saw the muscles bulge through the netting of his armor as he took an inhale.

Again, he rumbled out her name in the trill. "Le-eeh-ex," he rasped out, tongue flicking against the fanged teeth of his maw. Strangely, the woman wasn't disgusted or repulsed by this animalistic humanoid. Rather, she felt a pull in her body and a surge of heat that went straight to her toes.

Her mouth parted and nostrils flared in an effort to take in more of the musk coming off of him in waves – pheromones? A distant part of her brain was piecing apart the situation like it always did in times of pressure. But now, she locked it neatly away and worked the straps of her bra down until the rounded, swollen tips perked into hard nubs in the cool air between them, brushing the rough skin peeking through the corded metal of the netting across his chest.

Rumblings from Scar deepened into a more visceral purr, the vibrations leaking into her body as she pressed close to his heat. Little metallic twangs filled the recess as parts of the netting started to unravel at a few button prods on his belt and wrists. Soon it was a neat snare in the corner, and his body was surging against hers in a show of unchallenged dominance. Lex was dwarfed by his size – utterly small and insignificant compared to this apparent pinnacle of his species. He topped out over seven feet by her estimate, and was bulging and thick with muscle in every bit. Not an ounce of leanness to his build.

He seemed to know this – enjoying her eyes playing over every inch of his body with an appreciative trill before she started to scuttle back on her hands, trying to lurch away in a moment of apprehension. All it earned Lex was a hard, snapping blow to her buttocks with his clawed hand that dragged her back to press flush with his hard body. Not enough to bruise, but enough to get the point across to her that there was to be none of that. Instead, she put her trust in the male like she had done for the last twelve hours and submitted to him with a slight arch in her neck and a bow of her head.

* * *

Scar's eyes became narrow slits as he saw those silky bits of hair fall over her shoulders to hide the view he'd been enjoying.

Yaujta females were on average larger than males. It was a complete switch to have such a tiny female balanced in his lap and leaning her neck in that gesture of submission – a switch that set his blood to boil with heat. Even the typically pebbled skin and roughened tips of the Yautja breasts that had given him suck as a babe were absent in the ooman female. Instead it was supple and giving beneath his hands, and he heard Lex take in a shuddering breath when one talon flicked delicately at a dark, crinkled nipple.

He leaned down, his mandibles flaring to lock over the little globe of flesh to rub and circle the round of the areola until it was wet with spit and swollen. Mindful of piercing the flesh with his teeth, he gently clamped over it to give it a long suck, drawing delicately at it with his tongue. The female was thrashing under his hands, a spike in her scent flooding his senses before he felt the wet gush of heat soaking the cloth covering her sex.

Scar let out another rumble with the mouthful of flesh between his teeth before he pulled his mandibles off of the breast with a delicate yank, taking the other into them with a flicking, rippling motion that rubbed and handled the mound as he gave her suck. Overall, he could see what the blooded males who got the chance to mate were all raving about – but he doubted they'd ever had the pleasure of mounting something this soft, this sweet scented and tasteful. This giving.

A bold move in baring herself to him was a clearly receptive gesture, so he reciprocated the gesture with a solid click to the girdle of metal encircling his waist. His armor fell away with a clatter on the stone, and he shredded through the breechcloth beneath that to fist the thickness rising stalk-like and hard against his stomach. A thick, copious drizzle of fluid was gushing from the slit already, and from what he'd learned from the terminal files on human physiology, mating was completely compatible between their two species. Though how far it went had never been broached in the research he'd found.

Shock and surprise registered across the ooman's face. He let out a rumble. She was impressed by what she saw. Enough to bow her head and slink onto his straining thighs for an inhale, a puff of breath teasing the head of his organ before she had that pink, blunt tongue lapping over the slit to taste him. Scar let out a roar, bunching a clawed fist in the soft mass of the ooman's hair as her fascinating mouth wrapped around the girth of him. Her head slunk down, eyes dimmed over with what he recognized was breeding heat. She was as wrapped up in the instinct as he was.

He pushed away that surprise with a pained grunt, trying to keep himself from spilling like an unblooded youth pleasured for the first time – but it was hard. Only furtive gropes from his own hands had shoved him into climax in all his lifecycles – he was too proud to stoop down to the level of some dishonorable males who would fuck the _eta_.

Even his casual skimming on female biology concerning the ooman didn't prepare him for this kind of slick, soft heat wrapped around his cock. It swamped his brain like a drug, slowing his reflexes and lulling him into a calm sort of rhythm. His hand tightened on the hair fisted in it, and he guided her mouth with gentle, insistent tugs to bob up and down. Scar purred at the sight of every inch of the vein laden length slick with the ooman's saliva disappear between those swollen lips. But soon the rutting pulled at him again, and he was hungry for more.

* * *

Lex wasn't quite sure what had driven her to this – but the sticky, cloying liquid soaking her tongue and trickling down her throat in a steady stream was addictive in taste. Compared to humans, his species obviously made males and their physiology as appealing as possible – the semen's texture slick and filling, and tinged sweeter with what she suspected were excess nutrients.

She was messy, even with the constant swallowing sucks. Eventually it smeared her mouth and trickled down her jaw in a stream of white, and she had to pull her mouth off with a wet pop. Scar, to her shock, made a quiet trill that passed for a whine to her ears.

"I…don't think your females can do that, can they?" she murmured into the cold air with an expressive point to her mouth. He shook his great head in a 'no', the ornaments in his dreadlocks clicking together. Lex reached to take one long tendril between her fingers for a feel. To her surprise, the thing was hot with blood and very flesh like in her fingers.

Rubbing it elicited another purr and a tilt of his head, and Lex almost chuckled at the expression on the predator's face as she tangled her fingers in the dreads for a solid rub. Her eyes dipped down to the thickness prodding at her belly, and a fresh wave of fear had her quivering. It was too big – solidly built and traced with pulsing veins and ridges of flesh, glans peeking out from the cut head in a greenish tinged flesh pebbled with the strange texture like the rest of his skin.

A tightening in her warned her that her body didn't quite give a fuck if it didn't fit. She just wanted it in her.

Her hand latched onto the root of him, fondling the drawn skin of his sac before righting it to rub over the wet cotton separating him from every soaking inch of her. He didn't have time to take control before she was hooking the crotch of her panties aside to bare the swollen lips of her slit, balancing herself with a hand on his shoulder and her knees dug into the stone as she took the head of his rigid member into her.

By the start of it, she had both tiny hands locked around his throat and her eyes squeezed tightly shut against the feel of him spearing her flesh and splitting her open, his size filling her to the point of discomfort before she was fully seated on every inch of the fleshy length.

Panting and squirming, she couldn't seem to sit still and get a grip. Sex happened in her life with little frequency, but she wasn't unfamiliar with it. But this feeling – this burning, insistent need in her body to fuck and be filled. It was driving her to frenzy.

* * *

Scar fought for a scrap of control as the little ooman impaled herself on him, the bald lips of her sex kissing the hairless flesh of his sac and groin. Lex seemed as shocked as he was that her body managed to swallow him in one hungry, sucking lunge. She gave her hips a little rock, and was rewarded with a growl from the male beneath her. He surged, locking his hands on the flesh of her buttocks until his talons dug in to draw blood. Lex enjoyed the pain, fisting her hands into his dreads to give them a solid yank. That had the warrior roaring, his hips rising to slam into her frailer ones in a heavy blow. Lex had to bite back on a scream as he drove into her, the head of his cock nudging her cervix as she felt him thrust back in a broken, tilted motion of his hips.

Soon a rhythm was set – something hard and primal that made his loins burn. He twisted her on his cock to face her away, bending her at the waist with a roar and rearing up onto his haunches. Fisting her shoulders, he brought her body back in long lunges onto his length and scrapped her bare knees bloody on the rock as he mounted her from behind. The shapely feel of her taut buttocks pressing into him was another soft attribute that he couldn't compare to the feel of a Yautja female. Scar was beginning to fear he'd found a vice that he wouldn't easily quit or be able to substitute.

From her sobbing inhales and throaty screams, coupled with the fluxing scent of the climaxes she rode through in the hour of their mating, she wasn't dissatisfied. Another vice. Yautja females didn't freeze up and lock around a cock like a hungry, greedy mouth that sucked and pulled in rippling waves. Scar discovered the little bundle of nerves cloaked under her strange undergarments, peeking out of the hood of flesh and pearly pink enough to make his mouth slaver once he got a good look at the spot where they were joined. Lex came apart at those prodding touches, eventually coming undone in a loud, shrieking moan as he pinched it in the rough pads of his fingers.

Scar hunched over her, fisting a fleshy hip in one clawed hand before locking his jaw over the straining length of her neck in a tearing bite, ripping his mark into her soft skin on the nape. She didn't even seem to feel it in her haze of mating heat.

The male couldn't have ended a hunt better. His thoughts were swamped over with the new honors won this night – the skull of the queen, the honor of his clan, and the writhing, worthy female bucking beneath him and screaming herself hoarse on his cock.

He froze up at the tightening feel drawing his sac up, eventually the thick crawl of his seed spilling from his slit to gush into the female. He sent up a silent prayer – damning tradition. He wanted her brimming with seed until she bulged from it. More spilled into her until it leaked out from the point of their joining onto their bodies. Scar let out a rasping purr into her ear, cutting his tongue on a fang to smear the phosphorescent trail of blood onto the gaping wound laying her skin open on her slim neck. Soon it was healing over, and he took stock of the trembling female still mindlessly thrusting herself back onto him.

Yes. He could get used to this.

* * *

Lex came to a few minutes after her last wracking climax that had shattered her brain into little shards – took some time collecting them back into some working cohesion to process what her body was doing now. She was still impaled – more of the scorching seed dribbling down her thighs to steam in the freezing air. They were both steaming in the freezing air – heat rising off of their bodies as sweat collected in every divot of muscle and slid down their straining limbs. Her body clenched around him, and Scar gave her an answering roll of his hips as more of him spilled out of his pulsing cock.

"How much do you even _have_ in you?" Lex hissed, scrambling and scouring the bedrock of stone with her broken nails. Scar just trilled in response, rocking back on his haunches and bringing her to sit sprawled out in his lap – his organ still held tight in her body. She wasn't complaining. The heat alone was enough to give her pause, like a warm, slick column of heat spearing her while the rest of his massive body shrouded her as he tugged up his legs and arms to enfold the woman.

She felt him give her neck a few long licks, seeming to savor the scent and taste of the blood drawn. Lex, despite the gravity of the situation finally setting in on her – she did in fact just fuck an alien life form – gave her own imitation of his purr. That brought a pleased trill from him. Maybe she could take a stab at the language.

Soon enough, she was twisting around his cock to face him again in his lap, hiking one lean thigh over his bent elbow to face him. She tried to repulse herself with his strange features – the clicking probes of his mandibles and the ghoulish length of pearly white fangs hidden behind the flexing flaps of bone and skin. Or the broad rise of his head crest and the ridges of soft spikes lain along the pebbled, reptilian skin. But it was the eyes that drew her in. They were pooled gold that slipped and shimmered in the heat of the flame – recessed into his skull and staring at her with a measured, calm estimation. He knew her well already, and he expressed it through his looks and touches.

Lex leaned in to lock her eyes with Scar's. For a moment, she forgot about escaping from this frozen hell and returning to the _Piper Maru_. Of going back to civilization, licking her wounds, and then throwing herself back into the wilds to lead more rich parties up another rocky climb or insurmountable obstacle. Of returning to the feeling of isolation with her own race that did not quite understand her. Forgetting about all that had transpired here on this island.

For now, she reveled in the victory of survival. And the awe of the creature that had given her the gift of survival and ignited in her a sense of kinship.

* * *

Translations

_Kainde amedha _– hard meat (xenomorphs)

_Eta _– lowest caste in Yautja society; typically the crippled or cowardly who serve as slaves


	2. Boarding

_All respective rights to the owners – I am not profiting from this work of fiction or own any of the characters save for the original ones created. – Yours Hopefully_

* * *

Boarding

Alexa Woods, more commonly known by her colleagues as Lex, was sorting over the dilemma of her situation.

But the distracting noise of purring lapping at her ears fucked with her concentration something terrible. It muffled some after he had clamped his mask back over his face, sucking in the mix of air to feed lungs obviously starved of their proper intake after the extraneous activities.

Scar, her…she didn't have a word to identify him with. It was all too confusing. Lex shifted, easing herself away from his heat to rifle through his gear. They had been tangled up in the aftermath of their more visceral coupling – seed drying on their bodies and a twinge of a sore ache building in her sex. But like his blood, his other bodily fluid seemed to have some kick of healing effect as well.

She should've felt like a jackhammer just fucked her stupid. Instead, it was just a pleasant little ache with no damage to speak of. Her knees and some parts were scraped raw on the stone, but he fussed and hissed when Lex tried to smear them with more of his blood. Tall, dark and homicidal wanted her to keep some reminders of the wild night on the ice.

His masked face turned towards her, and like an irate jungle cat gave her a growl that warned her to be cautious. She picked up on his meanings quickly – more in synch with his body language than anything. Resuming her examination of what she could only define as some kind of shoulder cannon, she ruminated on the mounted gun set into the plated collar she'd handed over to Scar only a few long hours ago. It'd been the difference of getting them out of the pyramid alive.

The next item under examination was the wrist device that had replaced the one which had leveled the pyramid. This one came prepared for death – honorable suicide, as it was. And doubly prepared compared to his dead buddies.

Handling it with some delicacy – as she was still reeling from the fact that such a small device could total that much acreage – Lex toyed with a few of the panels until she had some sense of what the glyphic dashes meant. Numbers, letters. Their system of writing wasn't so dissimilar.

Scar kept an eye on her throughout the process, and a part of her was honored. He was letting her handle his weapons and gear obviously treasured beyond any sort of value to him. The difference between life and death in his line of work. Lex could sympathize – someone would fuck with her climbing equipment over her dead body. Especially an amateur with no knowledge of how to handle the item.

She set aside the wrist device and reached for her own combi-stick she'd dragged down here, the head of the xenomorph still resting beside it. The speared, flanged tail of the alien was taut and rigid against the staff – still functional enough to gut and tear. Lex placed it between the two of them, pointing at it and the oily skull sitting in the corner of the recess.

Scar trilled inquisitively. The woman decided words weren't quite enough, and she bent low over the spear between them with her hands clasped over her chest in a small salute. She felt his clawed hands coast over her shoulders before they were tilting her chin high, lidding his eyes at the sight of her face. A click and rasping sound filled the air before Lex realized he was speaking in syllabic words – something she couldn't comprehend, but the tone was one of respect and explanation. He knew her thanks, and was honored by her humility and skill in the hunt – or at least she thought he was.

* * *

He was fed up with not knowing what his ooman was thinking behind that still face. Usually you could tell with a Yautja – a flare of the mandibles, a crinkle in the broad brow. All of it added up to emotion. But this ooman was very good at masking them.

Scar had made up his mind about halfway through their coupling. It was an idea that he had entertained since the ooman female had the brash boldness to follow him and demand to pair up to hunt. The idea of keeping her.

It had been done before – the blooding of oomans. It was no crime, but instead frowned upon. Stigma typically came on the Yautja that blooded them with the mark, and they lost honor enough to pass as bad bloods. But in some clans, elders respected the blooding of a worthy hunter outside of their own race. His clan had long ago blooded an ooman male many life cycles ago, but even fewer oomans had actually lived in their culture.

Scar had decided to keep this female and court her for a life mate. He knew the elders would moan and shout about the absurdity, but it had been done before in their culture. A challenge was struck in him – to have the female as his and sire many strong young on her. To hunt with her until the Black Warrior came to claim them both for the _u'sl-kwe_.

The notion of another female, one of Yautja blood that could be mounted now with his new trophies…lost its appeal in the face of this small, lithe warrior.

Now it was just the bother of convincing her to come willingly.

* * *

Lex could definitely see the wheels turning in her companion's head. Frustration was twitching his tusks, and his brow creased in concentration as he stared her down. She snapped her fingers under his chin to bring him back from whatever pondering corner he was in, pointing outward at the maw of the recess and the sheets of ice trickling into the crag.

"We should go flag down your friends," she said, shuffling around until she was doubled down and crouching under the low ceiling. All that was left of any sort of covering on her were her panties – and in such a sorry state. They were soaked through with fluids and barely hanging by the elastic on her hips, the rest breezing by in shredded tatters from Scar's more enthusiastic clawing. Her bra met a similar fate.

Scar clicked in disproval, reaching for his gear to draw out some form of ceremonial drape folded in a pack. It was a rich red in some kind of fabric foreign to her – silky and heavy with characters spaced along the edges in scroll work. Obviously in his language. It swallowed her until he had her wrapped as tightly as a present in the improvised garment – covering her from head to toe in the wrap and then around her arms and head in a makeshift hood to shield her from the wind.

Lex scowled through all the fuss he put over her, trilling back in what she hoped was a bossy show. Scar got the point, spreading his hands and flaring his mandibles in irritation at her. Lex calmed. He was looking out for her. Nothing was left of her boots, so he eliminated the prospect of frostbite after he had geared back up by slinging her over his shoulder. Lex growled irately all through the climb up the ice wall – this time his hands catching onto a length of cable that had been sent down during their time in the small cave.

When they reached the top, Scar eased her back across his arms to hook one under her knees and around her waist, Lex supporting herself to sit up straight with an arm threaded around his neck. What she saw made her mind go slightly blank in wonder. It was a hulking, sleek ship spread out on the ice before them, ports opened to reveal a sterile, blinding light from within the vessel that pierced the gloom of the arctic night. Massive, it dwarfed even the pyramid's size in her eyes. Others like Scar were assembled – hauling out the kills from a newly fashioned hole drilled down to the remains of the cave to collect what was left after the explosion.

Another team was busy with the pit the queen's corpse had made with her acidic blood in the ice – a hovering winch and smaller vessel bringing her massive remains up and out of the ice to land across a platform readied to carry the trophy back to the ship.

The hunter hummed out another chuckle at her flabbergasted expression, tightening his hold on her as he ate up the ice with his long, even strides that took them closer to the ship. Lex could only keep her quiet, wary of the others that started to take notice of them both as they approached. They raised their clawed fists in a salute to Scar, but gave him puzzled looks about the human woman in his arms. Some of the males bore curiosity on their faces – others outright hostility. This could end ugly.

* * *

"_C'jit_! What the fuck do you carry, blooded?" snarled a male of the same age and rank – Pawal was fiery tempered at best, blood red fury to his cold steel as some of the elders called it. Impulsive.

"An ooman female. Obviously," replied Scar to his clan brother. Pawal roared in response, and Scar felt his bundle of female stiffen at the sound. He had to suppress a chuckle – she was not shrinking in fear, but puffing up in anger. She wanted to roar back, but lacked the concern as he did to engage this posturing male.

"I would speak with the elder, as is my right," said Scar in an even, clicking undertone. That got the honor guard sent out to receive him behind Pawal under control – if anything, it could be the elder's problem and not their own to deal with the situation. A pair split off to go loping back over the ice towards the ship.

The clan elder present at this trial was his mother's brother – honorable N'jal.

N'jal was many life cycles aged and bore the scars of many hunts won. Scar used to sit in the throng of his brothers to hear his mother tell tales of her honorable brother and his travels across the stars. Eventually, N'jal had reaped so many honors from his hunts that he grew tired of proving himself against countless opponents that sought him out to best him and gain all of his glory and trophies.

He retired as an arbitrator before he'd slain his third queen. That was when Scar's own father had been taken in the hunt by Cetanu* on some rocky world in an unknown system – thus N'jal had championed and claimed his vacated space as leader of Clan Dto-Vehn.

They numbered among the three largest clan of Yautja off of the home world – their clan ship and hunters the envy of most. For this Scar was proud.

N'jal made his slow, ponderous way out of the ship's portside bay onto the ice, the tail of his drape following in his wake. He felt Lex tense at the sight of the old Yautja, and reassured her with a gentle squeeze. No harm would come to this ooman.

"We will have to outfit this one with a translator, if she will consent," rumbled N'jal after he had reached the group.

Pawal, the fool, started to bark out a word of protest.

"Calm your rage, Pawal. My word is law," he said in a quiet, clicking tone at the blooded warrior that brooked no argument. Pawal slunk away with his head bowed towards the clan leader in deference, and N'jal rounded on Scar.

"Nephew, I have watched your trial and now elevate you to the honorable rank of the blooded. If not for the human, though, you would've had a different outcome. She is entitled to her honors with the kill as well as you are – in my eyes, both of you are blooded. Perhaps elite – no one has taken down an entire colony in a night." The rest of the honor guard punctuated the elder's statements with agreeing clicks and nods.

"Let alone with an under geared ooman for a hunt-mate," said one. Another piped up with, "And the lesser sex of their race!"

That had the group trilling in laughter until N'jal shut them up with a slow swing of his head that brought his stony gaze on the honor guard.

"Paya* take your brothers," said N'jal after a long moment. Scar bowed his head. Not much had been recovered, he had been told, save for their armor and weapons. The rest had been incinerated in the blast. Still, it would all be entombed alongside the bones of their father. N'jal clasped his hand onto his nephew's broad shoulder and shook him.

"You have honored them this night, Vra'jek."

* * *

The elder Yautja had blue dreads and obviously a deadlock over the balls of the younger one, Lex figured. Even Scar answered to this one – he had set her barefooted on the slick ice at a chirrup and bark from his senior.

Unexpected, he leveled his yellow eyes on her and went for Scar's combi-stick. It slid out with a slick, metal grind that was shrill in her ears. Scar bowed his head, tightening his grip on her shoulder briefly before withdrawing. Was this it? Were they going to silence her and dump her body over the ice to freeze?

Instead, Scar clasped her hand in his and held it aloft with long, rasping trills in his language. All paused in their work to watch, and Lex caught sight of a few Yautja popping out of the ship's ports to fold their arms and observe what obviously was becoming a ceremony.

Then the elder held the spear aloft, nearly shaking the ice with his roar. Scar followed, mandibles flaring as more males joined them in the long, bellowing howl that Lex was sure you could hear in Australia if you listened carefully.

At Scar's encouraging look, Lex tried out her own war cry to join the others. It was shrill, but she'd be damned to be a piss poor example of her race. So she howled with the rest of the primal aliens, and felt something wonderful at the raw feeling of spilling out the sound to the stars with them. Joining them in their unbridled feeling.

It died off, and the elder inclined his head to the pair of them. The combi-stick was retracted, and instead of returning to Scar he offered it out to her. Lex took it after a slight hesitation, thinking it would be bad form to refuse.

He bowed his great head at her in a gesture of benediction, turning on his heel with a flare of his ceremonial drape. The honor guard followed the elder back to the ship, slow and ponderous as the elder.

Everyone returned to the usual work – the fanfare over. The thrusters, or what she guessed were thrusters, whirled to life near the aft of the great ship. It was prepping for takeoff. Scar trilled at her, clasping her face between his massive fingers and fixing her with an intense look.

Pointing worked. First to her, then towards the ship. Finally the talon lifted high to point towards the stars. He gave her a linger touch on the mouth, backing off with the trepidation of a wounded animal before looking towards the portside opening blinding with light – closing slowly on the outside to narrow by the minute.

There was a moment where she looked out over the stark expanse of ice and night – the wastelands of earth. It was then that Lex grasped the feeling that had been wriggling around in her mind. She wanted to leave this place for good, and go beyond the reach of her own kind. Climbing a new height.

Her frizzled hair spilled over the drape as she tilted her head, peering up at the winking light of distant stars that pricked the heavens.

Those seemed high enough.

* * *

Translations

_C'jit _– damn, shit; general expletive

_U'sl-kwe _– final rest (death)

Cetanu – the Black Hunter, god of death Yautja culture

Paya – the conquering warrior, a god in Yautja culture


	3. Translating

_All respective rights to the owners – I am not profiting from this work of fiction or own any of the characters save for the original ones created. – Yours Hopefully_

* * *

Translating

The medbay was a low-ceilinged chamber near the aft of the ship, outfitted with the latest tech from the homeworld that the clan funds could provide. Regenerative tanks, automated surgical tables – things of that nature. Scar found it suitable.

Lex had been stripped and carefully outfitted in a mesh netting to regulate her temperature on the ship. The ship's regular temperature, like most controlled Yautja environs, was extremely high. In excess of one hundred of her _Fah'ren'heit_ degrees, as he had explained to her.

She sweated instantly under the arid heat in the ship and grimaced at the hotness of the flooring beneath her bare toes before he had swiped her back up in a sure-handed grip. Barking out a terse order to the crew manning that area of the vessel, he had backed them off enough to secure privacy in the medbay where he could array her in peace.

The _ki'cti-pa_ was still clutched in her small hands, but the trembling from the cold had steadied the long, thin fingers clutching the cool steel.

Scar threaded another brace over his ooman's arm. Netting slithered out to connect with the collar of metal clasped around her neck, spanning over the rest of her body 'til she was covered neck to toe in the thermal wear.

The ooman made a noise of relief. Scar could sympathize. He'd rather fuck a live circuit wire than walk around her planet's frozen hell without his gear. It was the reverse for Lex – oomans couldn't take the heat Yautja required to live comfortably in. But changes could be made. He normally kept his chambers on the low end of the hundreds, so with repeated doses of certain chemicals and the thermal wear it was plausible for Lex to acclimate and eventually go without.

A bigger problem was posed with the high nitrogen and carbon dioxide content his race required to breathe. Already her chest was panting in shallow, labored breaths as the ship's vents cycled through the breathable content into the chamber. Scar suppressed a frustrated growl before setting his mask and weapons aside. He kept a burner close for practicality's sake – he didn't trust Pawal to sit still while he and his ooman were alone and unguarded.

It would be hard to keep her lungs full, but a scrape and click to the collar of metal around her throat had a small current of oxygen flowing out of a small niche in the metal.

The tiny, almost microscopic needle popped out to press flush against her throat. Lex's pupils blew up a bit in fear, but like always his ooman mastered and masked the emotion quicker than he could blink. Scar reached for a tiny nanochip stored on the tray he'd put together next to the metal slab of an exam table, forceps gently squeezing on the miniscule thing.

Programming came easy to him. It had been that way since his mother had given him his first terminal – the manipulation of code and information into an electronic format. He'd even managed to snag a signal or two from Lex's planet and hack into their archaic network on his digital terminal a few months before his _chiva_. All done out of sight of his brothers and any other living body on the ship.

It only took a moment to upload the contents of a so called _Eng'lish_ primer from the archaic network and meld it with the basics of a Yautja's elementary vocabulary. Now the true test run of the device was in order. He opened a small sliver of metal and injected the chip into the collar before fitting it snug around his ooman's throat. The torc of bent steel fit well on her narrow throat. A common piece of fashion most females wore in both of their respective races. Scar figured she wouldn't mind too terribly due to its functionality.

The steel flared for a moment as an underlay of numbers flew across the thin metal. It quieted, and Lex blinked as Scar tried out a word.

"_N'jauka_," he trilled at the ooman. Satisfaction ran deep when he saw her eyes flare in surprise – she could understand him.

* * *

Whatever he had fitted around her throat had worked a miracle. Now indistinguishable clicks and growling syllables turned into language – melded right into the climber's mind to translate.

He welcomed her.

She responded in English, figuring he had understood her so far using it. Yautja seemed to require a wider range of vocal diversity. And Lex was short a set of mandibles to help out in that department.

"Hello," she replied awkwardly to his greeting.

Scar gave her what she translated as a smile. A little quirk of his tusks and a purr.

"The needle…is for your air supply. So you will not be starved for what your body craves," rumbled Scar. Lex suppressed the urge to gape. His voice was now distinguishable – low and sonorous, deep and guttural. Something that pulled at her stomach and made her pulse hike up to a fluttering jitter.

Scar seemed to notice the change, crinkling his brow and flexing the long column of his throat in a frustrated twist.

"Do it," Lex muttered after a moment of tension between the two, baring her throat and clenching her hands down on the edge of the table before the needle slid home with a painless jab into her trachea. Air flowed in after a wet noise sucked the pin into her throat, the collar obviously generating the oxygen despite its micro thin size. Their technology outraced anything she'd ever encountered – even in a fictional sense.

Now she took in a full breath, the dense air filtering through the pin in her throat to simply be synthesized into something close to what she breathed on earth. Focusing, Lex twisted and turned her head and neck to try it out. The pin detached.

Scar covered the tiny pinprick of skin from the entrance wound with a bit of thick, goopy liquid the color of human skin. It melded, filling the hole and sealing it until Lex took her first independent breath with her new implant. Perfect working order. She felt like she could run laps now with this fishnet getup and the miracle needle in her throat.

"It works great," she said with a small smile at Scar. "Thanks."

"You are welcome," he muttered, pacing back and flexing his toes to click his talons on the metal of the floor, eyeing her up and down before throwing the drape back over her body. The thin netting didn't hide much – although it did cover everything from the neck down. It generated what seemed to be a small climate in the suit that blanketed her – cooling and recycling moisture back into her body.

"Try to imitate what I say – even the noises you are not capable of. Vra'jek," Scar said.

Lex repeated, but instead of simply faltering on the trill, the collar emitted a metallic click at the end of the harsh sounding word in lieu of her lack of mandibles. Check off another wonderful thing about alien tech.

"What's it mean?" she asked, then suddenly knew. He pointed emphatically to himself.

"Still look more like a Scar to me – but Vra'jek fits."

Scar gave her another fluttering imitation of a grin, clasping her chin in his talons before turning her face this way and that – more thick liquid added on to any cuts or discolorations found. Once she was properly doctored up, he tended to his own wounds before moving back to the control panels at the airlock. Motioning her forward, he led them out into the vacant hallway. Beneath Lex's feet, the ship was deceptively still. And less obnoxiously hot. Were they moving at all? It was different from anything she'd ever traveled on. Hell, different than anything any human had ever flown in.

A brief memory of her first flight in her father's AW109 with him at the controls came to mind. The sensation of weightlessness as the rotor blades started up. Humming static filling the channel in her ears. Dad looking sidelong at her through his aviators with that grin.

Then she came back to herself from the memory. A lift at the end of the sterile corridor took them up a level into an open, long bay with a viewport situated near the end. The glass – at least it resembled glass – was frighteningly thin and showed nothing but the bleak night and the hunter's moon setting over the ice. Scar led her close as the ship gave an unperceivable tug beneath their feet.

Movement. Now the night was falling, falling. The glass window seemed to be situated at the aft of the ship since the ground was widening into a long stretch of ice instead of facing the open sky. Lex caught sight of the _Piper Maru_ and her lights before it too was a speck in the white. Oceans leaked over the ice, and soon continents appeared in definitive shapes before the great globe of the planet took form in a matter of seconds before Lex's eyes.

"A chance to turn back, if you want it. Lex."

It was Scar's voice in her ear. He had taken up the spot behind her. Warm hands rough from labor and the strange skin of his race clasped to her shoulders. The drape was slipping off in her loose-fingered grip, and he readjusted it to cover her modestly.

"No backing off. No turning back," Lex said in her most affirmative voice, swallowing whatever emotion tightening her throat.

"You may return yet," he added quietly.

Lex gave a shrug. "It wouldn't matter."

In all her life, Lex had never been dependent on anyone but herself. Her father was her only guide after her mother's death. Then the clot had taken him from her as well.

Now after so many years of solitude, of locking herself away in the deepest parts of her personality, she was thawing out to this one being. One that had put his trust in her to toe the line, steel her spine and overcome the odds alongside him. She could put her trust in him.

Scar gave her shoulders a squeeze, turning her to gently guide her away from the viewport as the moon and the earth turned into a tiny pinprick amongst the blackness of space. Receding.

* * *

The young hunter had gotten himself into a situation most would view as odd. For one, he had barely achieved maturity and already reaped so many honors in one blow that elites would roar with the absurdity and unfairness of it all.

Now he was a blooded hunter with his own quarters on the clan ship and trophies to mount on his walls and present to his matriarch. But Lex would create conflict upon conflict among the clan until it was proven that she had her right to stand by him. That would require training and time – both of which he could provide. The cruiser would only take a day or so to dock with the clan ship circling the ice world on the edge of this solar system. It would take them six standard months to return to the homeworld from there at the maximum speed – exceeding the rate of light.

Time they had plenty of. Scar was looking forward to it. Already he was getting wretchedly attached to her. Every tilt of her mouth and flare in her expressive eyes set his blood to boil, and endeared her to him. But he knew that was not what she wanted – coddling. She wanted equality like all females on top of her own space to breathe.

He had quarters near the fore of the ship near N'jal's massive apartments. Previously it was shared with one of his brothers while the elder sibling had his own private room near the small _kehrite_. The ship itself was his uncle's own cruiser during the rare hunts he'd undertake alone, but it was chiefly the clan's own cruiser to use during their _chiva_.

Round the winding corridors they went. Lex keeping even pace with his long strides and piping up a question or so every few yards – some making little sense to him until she explained them.

"So you've got faster than light travel down, I'm guessing?"

"Yes. Ancient technology for us," he answered in the affirmative.

She made a noise of surprise, coasting a nail over the steel plating girding the halls as they made their way along the dim lit passage. They came to the door, Scar pressing the pad of his thumb into the grid screen on the lock and barking out a brief syllable for the voice command protocol. The steel door slid away to reveal the entrance, and he motioned her in with a lingering scan of the hall. No one tailing them, but he wasn't optimistic. He locked down the magnetic seals and powered down the door after stepping through, bringing up the layout on his wrist terminal to shutter the vents against any subversive intrusions.

Lex seemed to get the idea that they were on lockdown. "Afraid that the macho one is going to rain on our parade?"

Scar didn't understand the euphemism so much, but the meaning was conveyed. He nodded. "Pawal is…competitive. He is impulsive – I do not want harm falling upon you due to his shortsightedness."

"I can handle myself," Lex said in a low voice, rubbing at the bridge of her nose as she situated herself on a low cushion near the carved table in the center of the small common room. A wide, narrow strip of glass showed the emptiness of space outside blocked by the mass of one of the system's few uninhabitable planets. It entranced his small female for a moment. The sight was novel to him now after many life cycles in space, but Scar supposed the view was extraordinary to a terrestrial race that only had just discovered flight a century ago. Let alone space travel half a century ago.

"I used to joke about becoming an astronaut to my father years ago – he flew in a few wars. Made colonel before he retired."

Scar delicately parsed through the information, garnering that her sire was in the military and had achieved the rank of a great warrior. A pilot of sorts as well.

"You have many things open to you now, Lex," he rasped out, gently folding his bulk onto a cushion near the table after setting aside his armor and gear on the ceremonial rack on the wall. It folded in on itself before tucking away in a niche on the wall, a clear pane of glass sliding down as the ultraviolet rays and decontamination fluids filled up to put the items in a suspension.

"I'll drill you with more questions tomorrow, big guy. I think you're a bit worn out as well."

"Yes…but I will keep watch until you have slept properly. Until then, you must rest. I will allow you the second watch, but if anything seems suspicious or the door unlocks, you are to alert me and lock yourself in the sleeping quarters. Pawal and his companions are impulsive, but far from stupid."

"Where do I sleep?" she said boldly, turning to fix him with a look through the lank, stringy strands of hair still wet with melting ice. Scar chuckled, reaching to rub a bit of the silk through his fingers until even Lex cracked a grin.

"Yeah. Maybe a shower before bed."

"I will show you the decontamination and elimination chamber," he said as he rose, leading her towards the spare room off of the common room. The other sleeping chamber had been locked down – less area to contain meant a tightly controlled environment he could keep an eye on. He'd afford his female privacy once the danger had passed.

* * *

Lex had to hand it to Scar's race – they had a good sense of decoration. She imagined animal skins – maybe a few human skins – to decorate their quarters in a barbaric motif. Instead it was all chrome and sleek woods with brightly beaded fabrics – a massive amount of potted greenery reaching towards solar lamps recessed into the ceiling.

The bedroom adjacent to the common room was a size larger and identical to the first in color scheme. But another small, sterile room led off of this one and a massive futon took up a corner dais. A wall also seemed plated over with black glass, a massive sectional draped with fabrics taking up the space in front of it. The rear facing wall was a massive pane of glass with a view of space. Mars currently whizzing by. Lex had to pinch herself at the surreal quality of it all.

Scar ducked a head into the decontamination…bathroom, as she had dubbed it. It had the toilet set into a metal bench and a sleek glass box melded into one corner with tiled walls and flooring. Shelves of strange liquids were recessed into the wall of the shower – a grate of beaded metal spouts set into the ceiling above the shower.

"Hit these buttons in sequence – first to shower, then to dry. The cleaning chemicals aren't abrasive to your flesh, but avoid the dark green liquid. It is a very strong base and might cause a rash," he clicked off, the glass of the shower itself lighting up in a sequence of lit characters and pinging with sound as he grazed a claw over them.

Hot water blasted like a small, contained rain shower from the grate of metal above. It sluiced into the drain below, small suds falling after Scar tapped another symbol before he swirled the glass dial. The steam let up to an icy pour. Lex was thrilled, reaching between them to adjust the flow to a scouring hot temperature sans soap suds.

"You catch on quick," he said with a touch of rough pride as she handed over the ceremonial drape and metal braces. The netting slid back into the cuffs and ankle braces as she took them off, the heat tolerable now thanks to a few injections he'd given to thin out her blood. Even the torc came off of her neck with a click. Unabashedly naked in front of her strange alien, she stepped through the sliding panel of glass and hissed as the hot water poured into her eyes and sluiced down her limbs.

Scar rumbled. Amusement or pleasure? Lex really couldn't tell. She flicked him with water before shutting the glass pane, grabbing what looked to be a pumice stone from the tiled shelves to scrub at the soles of her feet. The position left her ass upturned in the steamed air – the glass walls fogging up to merely make her body an outline in the steam to where even his keen vision couldn't make her out.

"Teasing is not a good tactic," Scar groaned out, seeming to wrench his body out of the room with a pained rumble. Even aroused, he wouldn't let his guard down with the macho squad out for her blood. Lex allowed herself a moment of cattish, female satisfaction at her effect on Scar. But turnabout was fair game.

* * *

Translations

_Chiva _– trial

_Kehrite_ – training hall

_Ki'cti-pa_ – spear/combi-stick/lance

_N'jauka _– welcome


	4. Transit

_All respective rights to the owners – I am not profiting from this work of fiction or own any of the characters save for the original ones created. – Yours Hopefully_

* * *

Transit

"Vra'jek! A word," barked a voice down the corridor. Scar exited the medbay with the doors closing on the sterile light bleeding through. The small problem that had been occupying his chest cavity was safely evacuated by the ship's surgical table with little issue – only a microscopic burn from where the entry incision had been made and cauterized evidence of the act. Oomans were susceptible to a shorter incubation period compared to his race. For that, he was lucky.

Still, he cursed his sloppiness. It was his one downfall in the temple that night.

A hulking female was hot on his heels, it seemed. Yautja women rarely were small save for their adolescent phase. Even that didn't last – his own sisters born many cycles after him were far outracing him in size by the year.

He nearly did a double take at the familiar sight of this particular one. She was older in years, marked from seasons of the hunt and still outfitted in her chrome gilded _awu'asa _and thermal netting. A bio-helm was snug over her features, rising in a broad sweep over the crown of her head with narrow slits lacquered in steel mesh. A mark mirroring his adorned the headgear.

"I don't know whether to congratulate you on your success or berate you for foolishness," growled the female. More commonly known as Rah'wan, Scar felt his hackles rise at the abrasive texture to her language.

"You wish to challenge me on these grounds? Who died and made you arbitrator? It is allowed, and no one has ever disallowed it. Our clan has marked an ooman before."

The argumentative tone he took on with the elder female didn't help his case. Scar could practically feel her slitting her eyes at him, heat rising to flush her veins green and throbbing against the pebbled skin.

"I do not challenge you," she said after mastering her anger. It was rare that she would strike – not him, at least. She'd always spared patience for the young. Elders who riled her up weren't so lucky. The body count for that infraction was in the hundreds.

"I have come to meet the female. And do not look upon me so – I swear with your grandsire's blood that no harm will come to her."

That disarmed him thoroughly. It was more than he could hope for to have an honored huntress meet Lex on good terms. She wasn't out for the ooman's blood at least. It was a step in the right direction – acceptance.

Rah'wan cast a look at the medbay, then Scar saw the slits of her helm's eyes tilt towards the thin silver of the scar on his chest. "Ah. You disposed of it properly?"

"It's in the incinerator. Nothing left behind," he assured the female, knowing that his small secret of no great importance was safe with her. Rah'wan snorted and shook her great head, moving off with the quiet grace that puzzled many. She was no dainty thing. Nearly topping out at seven and a half feet, she towered over most males and gave many elder females competition in size. Solid muscle lined her long legs, cinching in on a wide pair of hips and a chest riddled with muscle. Even her arms were impressively wrought with lean cords of the stuff.

The only reason she was so far out in deep space on a hunting cruiser with mostly male passengers was simple. She'd been stricken barren after birthing one large brood in her youth, no medicine or prayers restoring the life to her womb. After the death of her life mate, nothing had bound her to the clan's city on the homeworld where most females resided. The young had grown out of her home and gone off to breed or hunt. She took off with the clan cruisers and reaped honors as a solitary hunter. Rarely if ever did she dock with the clan ship on her cruiser from the _kv'var _in systems even Scar found too far to range towards.

Like always, Rah'wan took the lead. Scar admitted them to his chambers and sent out a cautionary trill for Lex. They had rested and dined after a long night of rest, Pawal never making good on his silent threats and posturing.

He caught sight of his female lounging near the viewport on a cushion, the thin pane of a terminal clutched in her hands. She was catching on to the mechanics of his language with a few hours of tutelage, but it would be months until she was fluent. Her eyes lit up in a warm smile before the large Yautja behind him shoved her way past. Scar had to repress a rumble of satisfaction when he saw Lex clutch her combi-stick beneath the cushion.

She was learning.

* * *

Expecting her oversized roommate, she was in for a nasty shock when a muscle-bound female barged past him. Jealousy grated on her nerves and roused a bit of shock – she had no claim on Scar. Why should she care?

Still, she shoved back all those pithy feelings and rose to her metal shod feet. Scar had procured a whole set of clothes for her, but to date she had worn the thermal netting and steel armor. It didn't cover much, more like a glorified bikini and the female counterpart to Scar's less than modest armor.

Lex stood her ground, tilting her chin to accommodate for the large difference in height between her and the female Yautja. She wasn't getting friendly vibes off of this one, but at least the scaled alien wasn't ripping into her with the wrist blades adorning her long forearms.

Scar placed himself in the zone of neutrality – in-between the two and off to the side. Lex knew he was planning for the 'if' in life. Diving in at a moment's notice might save her skin, so she allowed him the protective proximity despite her armed state.

"You are the one called Lex. I am Rah'wan of Dto-Vehn."

Lex bent her head in a respectful incline like Scar had taught her. The female seemed pleased by the gesture. "So. Vra'jek has taught you of our customs. I was told you killed a _kainde amedha_ with one blow. Impressive," she trilled in what Lex surmised as grudging appreciation.

The hint of blue in the dark mass of dreads trailing to her thickly muscled waist suggested the female was as old as the Elder N'jal. Lex wasn't about to make herself the expert on their biology, though.

"It was a good kill," Lex said in awkward Yautja. But instead of laughing at her clumsy attempt at the language, Rah'wan tilted her head in curiosity.

"You wish to live among us and learn our ways? To stand beside Vra'jek?"

"I do."

"I do not sense much conviction in that statement, ooman. Do you or do you not wish to live freely as one of this clan?" hissed the female, and for once Lex felt rage spark up in her belly. Fire brewed in her veins as she reared up at the female, baring her teeth in a careful show of aggression before the torc at her neck grated out a fierce reverberation. Her normally puny growl turned into something threatening and metallic.

The limb she had gone out on proved to be the right response. Reh'wan threw her head back in a growling laugh, barking madly before sliding the hoses out of her bio-helm and lifting it off. Lex's first look at a female Yautja was like her first look at Scar – everything about her features was foreign. But something feminine was echoed in the slimmer bone structure and narrow chin. Eyes wider and silted like a cat's eye stared back at her in a murky gold. Like the rest of her, she was molted in exotic greens and browns with skin smoother and fleshier than the male counterpart of the race.

Even the mandibles seemed a bit daintier, but the teeth were certainly just as wicked. Her broad brow was crested with tiny spikes and adored with the same mark Lex and Scar wore – the clan mark.

"I have the misfortune of calling this troublesome intellectual my grandson – sired by my late son who championed the clan as leader before the Black God took him," clicked the female in the low-pitched, sensual rumble. The elder female situated herself at the table in the common room, and Lex tried her best to not bang her shin on the low piece of furniture as she followed suit.

Savory pastries stuffed with a fluffy sort of meat and porridge-like rice fanned out on the platter. Nuts and some strange fruits she couldn't identify spilled over the top of one chrome bowl while a pitcher of the sweet _c'nlip_ beaded with moisture beside it. Males served the females firstly – Scar complied with the tradition by pouring out a measure of the viscous, thickly iced liquid. It was vaguely red and stained the tongue. Lex discovered even a small quantity of the alien alcohol put her under the table, so she raised her cup with the others and took only small sips when necessary.

Meals were completely communal and shared off of the plate in their culture. Already she'd teased Scar about his careful way of eating and he'd ribbed back about her mouth's ability to gobble up every tidbit offered. His grandmother was just as ponderous in movement, stripping bits of mango-like fruit up with her claws and holding a piece on the tip of her tusk while one mandible leveled the other morsel at her mouth. She tore into the dripping flesh of the fruit, chewing quietly before bringing in the other mandible with the fruit speared on the end. Lex tried not to stare in fascination like she did with Scar.

These guys made eating a dance.

"Lex is part of our language, in a way. _D'lex _– an unbreakable compound of metal and crystal. All glimmer on the surface, but riddled with bonds even the finest laser cannot cleave. You come from an honorable linage of your race?" Rah'wan asked after they had pushed aside the platters and emptied cups. Lex took advantage of an engrossing conversation between grandmother and grandson earlier by dumping the heady contents of her glass into a nearby potted plant.

Only time would tell if it would live. She was all about protecting the environment, but unleaded gasoline might be healthier to ingest than that stuff. It'd be rude to not eat and drink everything put before her.

"My parents were both great warriors, you could say," she said evenly before adding a perfunctory "Elder Rah'wan" to the end of the sentence.

"We will use that to your advantage. Already N'jal has contacted the council of the elders on the homeworld. In half a year, you will stand before them and demonstrate your range of knowledge concerning our culture, our creeds, and our code. Only then will your position in society be assured – on top of the trials you must undergo if you intend to be a hunter."

"I'd rather not sit around and look good. I need to be useful to function properly. I want to help," Lex said in a rush, eager to earn a friend in the lean female. Rah'wan gave her a rare smile and clicking approval.

"I can empathize with that, ooman. I will help you where I can, but it will be grueling. Vra'jek can help you only so far. We are clan now, but you must be strong as an individual to attain harmony as a mated pair."

The young woman tried not to flush up red under her dark skin, but she had the vague suspicion that Scar was fighting just that under the scrutiny of his overbearing relative. Their hands linked under the table after hers sought him out. A reassuring squeeze was given with her small fingers linking through his.

They weren't exactly forced into the position. But Lex couldn't deny the attraction present. Still, she didn't want any fuck ups between the two of them because of outside pressure. It was coy to say 'take it slow' after he'd fucked her brainless in a cave. But they needed time to grow, time to even out the odds stacked against them.

"The first lesson – our clan mark," she said, reaching out to prick Lex's mark cheek with a claw.

"Dto-Vehn has existed since the advent of Yautja culture, before the ancestors crafted the first space worthy ship to breech the stars. A city was forged out of the jungles of our world exclusively by our ancestors. Many pyramids standing still, we boast three elders on the council to gain equal footing with the larger clans. We hunted prey on the homeworld until the discovery of star travel, and then ranged further into the outlying systems to hunt worthier game. The females primarily stay on the homeworld to tend to the home, the pups, the fields, and the politics. Males garner honor and spread their glory throughout the universe. Dto-Vehn was the first clan to stumble upon the worthiest of prey, the _kainde amedha_. We have made it our mark, symbolized by the long slant of the skull of the hardmeats coupled with the height of its form beneath the slant."

The more she examined the mark on both of the other Yautja, the more it made sense. They practically revered their prey, centering their most sacred rites on the creatures.

The elder continued unbidden, retracting her long arm to trace the dull scar gracing her broad forehead. "We find purpose and pride in this, for no other clan can claim a worthier foe as their own. Our clan territory is established to nearly a hundred galaxies, and in those systems are our hunting grounds. Your system included."

Lex thought it proper. The clan had been hunting earth for millennia before this, every hundred years making the exodus for the trials that Scar and the others undertook. How many more times had they hunted her homeworld?

The viewport shadowed over for a moment, and a voice came over the comm-system. "Docking with the clanship shall commence in half a standard hour – prepare to disembark."

Lex got her first look of the clan ship at a distance. All she could do was gape. It was massive on a scale no human could imagine – at least twelve miles in length with enough width and breadth to fit a couple of skyscrapers standing.

Again, chrome and some black metal comprised the bulk of the ship. The dark hulk of it moved across the stars like some colossal shadow. Lex wrenched her eyes back towards the elder before embarrassing herself.

"I shall teach you what I know, and impart my wisdom and council to you when you are wise enough to seek me out for words, D'lex of Dto-Vehn," said Rah'wan, obviously christening her with her new identity to suit her new culture. Lex didn't mind it so much if it meant a measure of respect instilled with other Yautja. She could no longer call herself human. A drifter between the two races now, she had to latch on to at least one.

She chose the better of the two.

Rah'wan rose after a brief exchange with Scar, clasping her bio-helm back onto her fierce countenance. Bowing to them both, she exited the room for parts unknown. Lex practically crawled to her feet to help clear away the platters and leavings, setting them in a niche on the wall to be transported back to the galley. A flare of light and they were simply vanished.

Lex let out an exhale, trudging into the bedroom before collapsing onto the sectional in front of the wall terminal and unraveling her hair from the thick braid. It felt like she hadn't breathed proper since "Commander Grandma" came stomping into the compartment. Scar came up from behind to gently clasp her neck between his massive fingers, rubbing at his mark silvered in scars on the nape.

"You did very well – most either lose their temper or break under pressure with Rah'wan," Scar said in a soothing tone, chirruping into the loose mass of curls tumbling across her brow. Lex didn't mind the contact. He'd kept his respectful distance like a spooked horse since they'd boarded.

Or more like he was tip-toeing around her. It would take a bit more to really flummox her. In the last twenty-four hours she'd managed to lose sight of most of what she wanted out of life only to reshape it with a new goal. It wasn't about environmental groups and climbing anymore. Not about an empty apartment to come home to and no calls from anyone on holidays. Funerals to attend. Romantic entanglements that led to messy breakups when she couldn't summon up enough emotion to care about the guy on any deep level besides lust.

Lex raised her head, smiling genuinely at the male gently clawing her scalp. That felt better than anything. Intimacy.

"If that's your father's side, I'm not banking on your mother's side being the better half."

* * *

Translations

_Awu'asa _– armor

_C'nlip_ – sweet alcohol

_Kainde amedha _– hard meat (xenomorphs)

_Kv'var_ – hunt


End file.
